Whataburger Restaurants LLC is immediately restoring its full breakfast hours, of 11 p.m. to 11 a.m., after limiting service due to an egg shortage, the company said Friday.
The San Antonio-based quick-service operator, which has 780 restaurants in 10 states, reduced breakfast hours as of May 31, to 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. on weekdays and 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. on weekends, to deal with an egg shortage.
Whataburger said Friday that it had secured additional egg supplies and “is no longer experiencing an egg shortage.”
“All of us at Whataburger are so happy to get back to normal and serve our full breakfast menu to customers during our usual breakfast hours,” Whataburger chief operating officer Dino Del Nano said in a statement.
Whataburger had taken the unprecedented step of reducing its breakfast hours to deal with a national egg shortage linked to an outbreak of avian flu.
Del Nano thanked Whataburger customers for their patience in the nearly three weeks of shortened breakfast service.
“While Whataburger was originally made famous by our burgers, our customers really love our breakfast menu — including those menu items made with eggs,” Del Nano said. “We know it’s been a tough couple of weeks for our customers, but we’re really grateful for their support while we worked to build up our egg supply.”
Earlier this month, DeWayne Dove, vice president of risk management for SpenDifference, a Denver-based purchasing cooperative, told Nation’s Restaurant News, “Our egg supply is quite the challenge, no question about it.”
Dove said the outbreak of the H5N2 virus, mostly in the Midwest, and especially in Iowa and Minnesota, has resulted in the destruction of 44 million birds, or 13 percent of the total domestic flock of egg-laying hens, as well as 4 percent of the turkey flock.
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